I started cooking from Joudie Kalla’s Baladi cookbook by making a more complicated dish—meat-stuffed grape leaves with tomatoes and potatoes—then I moved on to a simpler cabbage salad. This dish is even easier than that—egg with yogurt, chili, olive oil, and lemon. Joudie writes that it is her father’s favorite breakfast, and I can see why. The hot, soft-boiled eggs melt into the yogurt, and the resulting fondue-like blend gets a jolt from fresh lemon and chili. That’s a lot of flavor before 9 am.
For those of you who’ve been hesitant to try one of these recipes— maybe you think the whole thing is an irredentist Palestinian plot to undermine the Jewish state, or an imperialist Israeli plot to get you to appropriate Palestinian culture, or, you know, maybe you just hate cooking, this is a good dish to try. You can make it in 5 minutes. It captures the flavors of the land, and it does go well with strong black coffee.
A few egg recipe notes: You can make this with labne, Greek yogurt, or strained regular yogurt. You can dust with some za’atar. I’ve also made a version adding a small scoop of warm garbanzo beans and a tomato-harissa sauce– a perfect brunch meal.
Next up: dessert. The Times of London just named Baladi as Best Cookbook of 2018. Congratulations/Mazel Tov/Mabrouk to Joudie Kalla—it’s time to celebrate!
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